relations committee, i think a great deal of what good foreign policy about is building personal relationships and building personal relationships with leaders around the world. and the one thing that i've really observed, senator kerry, of you is that you have done that. and we have had so many of these private meetings across over there in the capitol and in the small foreign relations room and i could just feel with meeting with all these leaders, the tremendous respect that they have for you and the ability you are going to have to build on that to make an excellent secretary of state. so i'm very excited about this opportunity for you and i want, in my first question here i wanted to focus on mexico and central america. during the last decade, relations between the united states and mexico have strengthened as a result of our shared security goals relating to the initiative. and one of the pillars of that initiative includes judicial reform and you know this very well. however, the federal government and many of the mexican states have yet to pass legislation which would cha